In a Democracy Now! special, we look at the acclaimed Broadway musical "Fun Home," which swept the Tony Awards last month. Composer Jeanine Tesori and lyricist Lisa Kron made history as the first female duo to win a Tony Award for Best Original Score. "Fun Home" is also the first-ever Broadway musical to feature a lesbian protagonist. The musical is based on the 2006 best-selling graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel, "Fun...

Same-sex weddings took place across the country this weekend after the Supreme Court ruled that all 50 states must now permit LGBTQ couples "the fundamental right to marry." The historic decision puts an end to marriage equality bans that remained in 14 states, impacting tens of thousands of couples. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said, "Changed understandings of marriage are characteristic of a Nation where...

After the Supreme Court’s historic ruling on marriage equality, many LGBTQ leaders are now redirecting their attention to obtaining federal, state and local legal protections in areas of employment, housing and commerce. Nationwide, anti-discrimination laws for gay people are inconsistent and unequal with only 22 states barring discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Human Rights Campaign is now advocating for a broad federal...

President Obama’s immigration policy came under direct challenge Wednesday at the White House. As Obama spoke to a gathering celebrating LGBT Pride Month, Jennicet Gutiérrez, an undocumented trans activist from Mexico, interrupted him from the crowd and called for an end to deportations. Gutiérrez is a founding member of Familia: TQLM, established to advocate for LGBTQ immigrants often excluded in the immigration debate. She joins us to...

By Amy Goodman and Denis MoynihanEvan Young was the valedictorian of this year’s graduating class at Twin Peaks Charter Academy High School, in Longmont, Colorado, and planned to give the valedictory address. But his principal never gave him the chance because Evan planned to come out as gay in the speech for the first time. Evan eventually got to give his speech — two weeks later, not far from where Matthew Shepard, a young gay man, was...

Watch our extended interview with Evan Young, 2015 valedictorian of Twin Peaks Charter Academy High School in Longmont, Colorado. His principal prevented him from delivering his graduation speech in which he planned to out himself as gay.

Eighteen-year-old Evan Young was supposed to be the 2015 class valedictorian of Twin Peaks Charter Academy High School in Longmont, Colorado. But his principal prevented him from giving his graduation speech after learning he would announce he is gay. Instead, two weeks later, Young got to give his speech at an Out Boulder fundraiser before an audience of hundreds, a number of them politicians who congratulated him for his bravery. We air...

After a national outcry, both Indiana and Arkansas have passed fixes to their so-called religious freedom laws that threatened to sanction anti-LGBT discrimination. Both measures were signed into law Thursday by the states’ governors. The revisions to Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act provide new protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees, tenants and customers, lawmakers. The fixes do not apply to...

By Amy Goodman with Denis MoynihanIndiana certainly doesn’t want to be remembered for being a bastion of hatred. So why did Indiana Gov. Mike Pence legalize a new wave of intolerance by signing into law Indiana’s controversial “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” (RFRA)?

As the state of Indiana faces increasing pressure to repeal a new religious freedom law, Arkansas lawmakers have passed a similar bill that critics say could allow business owners to refuse service to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender customers in the name of religious freedom. Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has said he plans to sign the bill into law. On Tuesday, the CEO of Wal-Mart, Arkansas’s largest corporation, called...

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